FUCK. I HATE you, China.
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtri...340277776.html
The latest Chinese threat: No slip of the tongue By Christopher Holton
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM Monday, July 25, 2005
Partially buried in the news dominated by terrorist bombings and the Valerie
Plame blamegame on July 15, was an overt threat against the United States
delivered by a general in Red China's People's Liberation Army (PLA).
General Zhu Chengu, the dean of Red China's National Defense University,
said that if the United States interfered with any Chinese attempt to use
force against Taiwan, China would attack America with nuclear weapons. Here
were his exact words:
"I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons. Of course, the
Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of cities will be destroyed
by the Chinese."
America's response to this threat has been curiously weak. America chose its
weakest department of government with which to respond: State.
The State Department's spokesman called the remarks "unfortunate,"
"disturbing" and "irresponsible." The response made it seem as if the State
Department believed that the remarks were either made mistakenly or did not
represent the views of Red China's leaders.
This was playing right into China's hands. They proclaimed that the general'
s remarks were his own personal viewpoint and not official Chinese policy.
But, most importantly, the Chinese did not retract the general's statement,
nor did they disavow the remarks or apologize.
One wonders what the outcry would be from both sides if a U.S. Army general
had uttered such a comment directed at China. I frankly believe that our own
State Department's response would have been much stronger and more critical
had a U.S. officer made such a statement and there is no doubt in my mind
that we would have disowned the remark. Meanwhile, our general's career
would be over for all practical purposes.
Some might say that perhaps the Chinese general's career will suffer as a
result of his remarks. I doubt it. Not if history is any guide.
You see, this is the second time in the past decade that a high ranking
Chinese general has threatened the U.S. with nuclear weapons in the past
decade. Back in 1996, speaking about the same question of Taiwan, General
Xiong Guangkai inferred in a thinly veiled threat that the U.S. would not
come to Taiwan's aid because America cared more about Los Angeles than
Taipei. He made this statement directly to U.S. diplomat Charles Freeman.
No apology was ever issued for those remarks in 1996. General Xiong was not
reprimanded, in fact, he was promoted and became chief of military
intelligence, close to the top of the PLA hierarchy.
What is shocking and frustrating is that anyone in the United States could
even believe that a PLA general could ever just express his own views in the
first place. U.S. officers are highly restricted from expressing their
opinions on such matters. In China's centralized, communist society, there
is no such thing as freedom of expression. Do you think for a minute that
this same general could have said that Taiwan had a right to sovereignty and
survived intact? Of course not. General Zhu's remarks were not inadvertent
and they certainly did not reflect his own personal views. We can be sure
that his remarks were calculated and designed to both issue a warning to the
U.S. and then solicit a response that could be carefully analyzed and
measured.
So far, we have failed this analysis. Instead of wondering aloud whether
these remarks represented official Chinese policy, we should have declared
that the remarks put the U.S.-China relationship in a whole new light then
summoned our ambassador for consultations. We should have demanded a
retraction and apology. We should also have convened a meeting of leaders
from Japan, Australia and others in the Asia-Pacific region to discuss China
's repeated threats to use nuclear weapons. And we should have inferred that
another option would be for the U.S. to fully arm Taiwan with sophisticated
weaponry so as to make U.S. action unnecessary.
mere rhetorical bullshit? maybe. but wars have been started over this kind of language. we're fast coming to the point where China will be in a good enough political and military position to challenge Taiwanese autonomy and, most likely, it will make or break the US position in the 21st century. it's not too far out there to imagine losing western europe to the Chinese, hell, they're already in bed with them, but nations like Canada, Australia, Japan, the UK, etcetera? if Taiwan falls, it's definitely a possibility. if they slip away peacefully, we'll lose too much face politically. if we go to war with China, well, their nuclear capabilities are now almost on par with our own. oh, the problems one well placed bomb in Beijing might solve.
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